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Bob Junas stands with his father, Paul. Bob still runs the store that his father operated on Peace Street, but it now specializes in health foods.

Paul Junas stands behind the counter of his grocery store on Peace Street in Hazleton.

Long before convenience stores with their bling of lights, designer drinks and electronic cha-ching answered our calls for the little missing things in life on any given day — or night, mom-and-pop stores formed the bread and butter of the Hazleton area.

They provided not only candy for the masses, or that quart of milk and loaf of bread to save the day — but also the unforgettable and treasured bonds of local business.

Some businesses endured for a blink in time, while others lasted for more than half a century. A rare few are still going strong.

And when snowstorms hit, they stayed open providing bread, milk and eggs, the local survival list of must-haves for those times.

We tend to think of mom-and-pop stores as strictly grocery stores, but technically that is limiting, and just not correct.

A mom-and-pop business was — and still is — a small, family-run enterprise that generally exists in one location. You can’t franchise a true mom-and-pop store!

They are noted for occupying small, if not economically tiny, spaces and having few, if any, employees outside of the family circle.

And it was common for mom-and-pop stores to exist on the ground floor of an apartment building or house occupied by the family. That’s why it was easy for many of them to keep their doors open during snowstorms.

East side

Nick Beltrami’s store, Nick’s Superette, was located on East Third Street between Monges and Harrison streets. It was a sunny and popular store, and delivered peerless quality, according to customers who remember it.

Beltrami’s son, Mike, said his father, who was a butcher by trade, was renowned for his fresh meats. “He baked all the hams for Fierro’s Funeral Home,” he said.

A tradition of the funeral home had been to send a ham to the homes of one departed whom the funeral home was assisting.

“He baked all the hams at home,” in a regular oven, Beltrami said. He added that this got very hectic around Christmas with orders when the oven was going basically day and night.

Kim Hiza Ator of Hazleton recalls Beltrami’s as having “absolutely the best cold cuts.”

Other stores in that area catered to those with a sweet tooth.

Geri Brioc lived on Hayes Street as a child and frequented Foderaro’s on Garfield Street between Second and Third streets. Most of all she remembers “Joe and Fannie ... they spoke broken English,” she said.

Certain stores also had one distinct smell; at Foderaro’s, Brioc remembers a pink sugar aroma. “The penny gum, I can still smell it,” she said.

On wheels

Florence D’Amico Lutz of Hazleton recalls her parents’ store at Fourth and Carson streets, across the street from Saullo’s. Her parents, Peter and Pauline D’Amico, turned a historic trolley car that was no longer in use into a small grocery store that sold essential foodstuffs, along with candy, cakes and ice cream, during the 1940s for approximately seven years.

Her father purchased the trolley for about $500 and it was shipped to the D’Amicos from Allentown.

They lived in a house just behind the store, and Florence attended Most Precious Blood School.

“My favorite memory is when I would come right into the store and stand over the heating register,” she said, explaining that her father had dug out a basement for the trolley and put in a stoker.

“It was warm and sometimes the heat blew my skirt up into the air just like what would happen to Marilyn Monroe!,” she said.

By 1950, Florence said, her father shut down the trolley store. He was offered a better job “drilling in the strippings,” and decided to move on to that instead.

However, the idea of small business on wheels continued to roll along, quite literally.

Many boomers remember Krizansky’s truck, which was actually a 1940s bus that was turned into a store on wheels. This truck was a lifeline for necessities and odds and ends visiting local patch-towns.

Mike Opilla also had a store — and a bus that served Freeland and the patch towns in the vicinity. Opilla took the mom-and-pop store on the road adding pizza and produce to his mix of products.

He also had a propane-powered cooler on the bus, from which he sold meats and cold cuts. Opilla’s store-on-wheels was seen most prominently in the 1960s.

Colangelo’s store in Hazleton also took to the road, bringing sundries to the patches.

In fact, these vehicles were little on-the-go general stores for many in isolated area micro-towns helping those who had no regular transportation and few real small grocery stores to meet their basic needs for groceries — and some luxuries.

Candy to health food

Bob Junas, 74, today maintains Hazleton’s only real health food store, at 928 Peace St. Junas’ father, Paul, ran a grocery store that Bob later took over. However, Bob gave it a new and sustaining niche.

Freezers from the 1940s remain in the store and are in great condition, refrigerating items like probiotics, according to Junas.

Today he sells a wide variety of products ranging from the expected vitamins and herbs to hard-to-find food and beauty care products.

Junas pointed to the ceiling tiles in the store’s extension, which houses many refrigerated items such as ice cream.

“I was born above that ceiling,” he said. As with many local mom-and-pop stores, the family lived snugly above the store.

He plans to keep on going, but said his business is down about 30 percent over the last decade.

Junas cites Internet shopping as part of the problem, and pointed to a space outside his door, which could be any door in the city, where he said no doubt people would be receiving home deliveries from their online shopping.

“It never stops,” he said. “The trucks just keep on rolling by.”

Additionally, crime — or the perception of it — has taken a bite out of his business.

“People tell me that they don’t want to come into Hazleton at all to shop,” he said. “But others tell me that they still come into Hazleton just to shop at my store.”

As for the future of the family business, Junas said has offered the business to his nephews. “Unfortunately, they are just not interested,” he said.

Meat and cheese

Rose Maria Farnell Kosto graduated from Bishop Hafey High School in 1978 and now lives with her family in western Pennsylvania.

But she still remembers her grandparents’ store, S&R Provisions, that was situated on South Laurel Street adjacent to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and few blocks from Deisroth’s department store.

Kosto explained that the store, run by Samuel and Rose Farnell, provided meat and cheese to many restaurants and other food providers such as Knotty Pines, Top of the 80s, Jimmy’s Quick Lunch, Coney Island, Senape’s and Edgewood in the Pines.

When Rose was still in her teens, she helped her grandparents by running errands and keeping their books.

“They sold all kinds of meats that came on hooks and pulleys,” she said.

The meat was butchered in house, where they made homemade sausage. She describes the inside of the store as having “huge blocks of Cooper sharp cheese, with equally huge boxes of stuffed chicken breast, chicken breasts and speciality products imported from Italy.”

Eventually, they opened an addition where products could be purchased by individuals at retail prices.

Her father, who was a Hazleton city detective, used to refer some individuals who were on parole to the store for work so they could get their lives back on track. Farnell said he would even help their families by buying food and diapers.

“I know of three parolees who turned their lives around because of this,” she said.

Unforgettable aroma

You just can’t bottle the smell of the bygone mom-and-pop stores.

“Each had its own unique smell. No two were alike,” said Frank Skokoski, an attorney who grew up in Green Ridge and still lives there.

He recalled that some stores smelled like a variety of sweet things, while others were redolent with the aroma of succulent meats. In some cases sweet and savory perfumes blended, he remembered. And they changed according to the season and what was cooking.

Skokoski also recalled the marvelous aroma of comic books at select stores in his vicinity during those days. “I miss the smell of the comic books,” he said.

He still wonders about the special inks that gave the comic books their bygone allure.

mjacketti@standardspeaker.com

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